Frequently Not Asked But Pondered Questions
by A-kun
Summary: A collection of ideas and clarifying details on how the Dungeon Keeper world works. Warning: Has some spoilers for DK Ranma, DK Ukyou and Anime DK for those who are not past DK Ranma 10, DK Ukyou 2, and Anime DK 4.


Frequently Not Asked But Pondered Questions on Dungeon Keeper  
  
1) Can any stupid creature become a Dungeon Keeper?  
A) No. Contrary to popular belief, a creature needs to have an   
IQ of 50 and inner source of mana in order to become a Dungeon Keeper.   
This prevents skeletons and vampires from becoming keepers as they   
don't possess inner sources of mana. They are magical, but they don't   
PRODUCE magic like a living creature would. They would likely just   
absorb the energy from the Dungeon Heart, making using it very very   
difficult, if at all possible (try running a computer with only 10% of   
the energy needed).  
  
2) Why 50?  
A) Because the creature needs to be able to use the Dungeon   
Heart. The Runes for rooms, spells and such are simply to speed up how   
quickly the Dungeon Heart can respond and maintain a level of   
effeciency. The Dungeon gives the keeper a small kick in the butt...   
er, I mean, some basic instructions on how to use it, but the creature   
has to be intelligent enough to be able to HOLD that information.  
If a creature is able to imagine what they want, they can get it,   
but it will be a lot less efficient. The cost would likely be double   
or triple normal, meaning just a 3x3 lair could cost upwards of 8100   
gold instead of 2700. This is why most keeper have to be able to use   
the runes.  
Besides, do you honestly think an artificer of these things is   
going to just let some rat or chicken wander onto it and claim it? No.  
  
3) Why not?  
A) Because if you were the artificer of these things and you knew   
damn well that you weren't going to live forever, would you want your   
Dungeon Heart to be doomed to destruction because something stupid   
claimed it? No.  
  
4) So there aren't any non-human Dungeon Keepers?  
A) I didn't say that. I said that the creature has to be   
intelligent enough to use it. Why keep a prodigy from claiming your   
artifact, just because it happens to be rat or a chicken? In truth, I   
have many non-human keepers. The one Keitaro worked for was actually a   
firefly. It had fused with the Dungeon Heart.  
  
5) So, if you fuse with the Dungeon Heart, you can live as long   
as it does?  
A) No. In time, your body gets... digested by the Dungeon Heart   
if you stay in it too long. You can live upwards of double your   
natural lifespan, possibly even more, if your Dungeon Heart never gets   
severely damaged (which causes it to beat faster, thus damaging your   
body), but there's also the drawback that the longer you stay in it,   
the less time you can spend away from it. Stay in too long and you can   
never leave (which is horrible for a keeper who hasn't had the chance   
to produce offspring (or Offspring, the band)). Sadly, this is what   
had happened to the firefly Keeper.  
  
6) Why doesn't anyone need water? Wouldn't everyone get   
dehydrated in dungeons without water?  
A) The way I see it, the hatcheries probably magically hydrate   
the body as you stand in them, which is why creatures like the Troll or   
the Bile Demon visit them so often (forging is thirsty work!). It's   
not a perfect solution, but it'll keep the creatures from getting   
thirsty. Besides, you don't know what's been in that dungeon water.  
A friend pointed out another possibility. There are types of   
fungus that can absorb water and grow by living off the impurities.   
However, if you were to open it up, you'd find fresh drinkable water,   
sort of like what's found inside a cactus.  
  
7) How do the prisons work? I mean, they can make skeletons in   
roughly five minutes or so.  
A) They create sort of an antithesis of the Hatchery's hydration   
effect, drawing water from the creatures (the rats that surround the   
prison are protected against this). If the creature catches a disease   
from one of the prison rats, this triplicates the dehydration effect   
and causes most unhealed creatures to die instantly.  
And in actuality, this probably takes about a week to occur.  
  
8) Lord Avaricious couldn't have been the only greedy power-  
abusing jerk on the heroes' team. Who else did that?  
A) In canon, no one, though a few are already dead or they're   
referred to as cowardly or gutless (like Ludwig, who destroys the   
bridge to his domain and Lord Constantine, who guards his fort with   
Fear Traps). In my stories, there are a number of Bad Lords or at   
least Lords who shouldn't have gotten their titles.  
Lord Darius was a pompous twit who overestimated his popularity   
(no one in his own fortress liked him, let alone anyone in the nearby   
towns). In DK Ukyou, I go a bit further with him and make him focused   
on appearances, so he heavily taxes his people so that he can have even   
more luxuries to impress his guests with.  
Lord Constantine was a lush (which was why there weren't many   
people in his fortress, because he couldn't pay them or remember who   
they were).  
Lord Bramble was a penny pincher (his men were weak from hunger   
because he hated stockpiling anything save cash).  
Lord Ronin was a self-glorified rapist (he chose to take his   
pleasures on females that he found pleasing, such as Dark Elves or   
Mistresses). He's probably the only lord who's the most difficult to   
plan out because I hate his type. It's bad for a character when their   
own author hates them.  
Lord Tiberius was a paranoid freak (which is why HE had so few   
men in his fortress, because he thought that most of them were plotting   
against him).  
Lord Kentaro Sakata in DK Love Hina is very much the same as Lord   
Darius, only Kentaro had... problems implimenting the same in full   
effect. He was even less popular than Darius, meaning he could only   
get enough to clean the outside of his keep, but never enough to clean   
the insides. As a result, his fortress was a dump on the inside and   
sparkling on the outside.  
  
9) So how does one go about getting a Dungeon Heart?  
A) It's pretty much as easy as it's made out to be. First, the   
previous keeper must die. If they haven't fused with their dungeon   
heart, then all you have to do is kill them while they're away and   
prevent any imps from hauling his/her/it's body back to the Dungeon   
Heart (burning it is the quickest path). If they have fused, you have   
to either speed up their body's digestion or simply wait for the keeper   
to be digested (though, they can haunt the Dungeon Heart until struck   
down).  
Once the former keeper is dead, the dungeon heart needs one full   
moon cycle to uninitialize from it's former master's power. During   
this time, if the keeper was killed away from their Dungeon Heart,   
reviving them or placing him near the Dungeon Heart will restore them   
to their Keeper status (again, burning them or other fast-body-  
destroying methods (such as acid, stomach or otherwise) will prevent   
this).  
Once the heart had uninitialized, the new keeper must step up   
onto to the invisible platform above the Dungeon Heart. If they are   
living and intelligent enough to learn the basics that the Dungeon   
Heart gives them, then they'll become the new Dungeon Keeper.  
Being the Dungeon Keeper grants a lot of boons. First off, the   
Keeper can never catch a non-magical disease of any sort and they are   
purged of any diseases. Secondly, any biological faults that may cause   
an early natural death, such as thin veins, weak bones, etc. are   
cleared up as well. The keeper also cannot break bones or dislocate   
joints. They can still feel the pain, though.  
  
10) If the Dungeon Keeper can be killed and the Dungeon Heart is   
destroyed, is the Dungeon Heart gone for good?  
A) If it's the Primary Dungeon Heart and no Temporaries exist,   
then yes, sadly. If either the Keeper or the Heart (or any of it's   
temporaries) survives, then a ressurrection can occur. This is why the   
Keeper relies on the Dungeon Heart and the Dungeon Heart relies on the   
Keeper.  
  
11) Why did Nemesis move his Primary to Cherry Blossom?  
A) Because the land he was hiding in had very little in it. Even   
if he'd kept his Primary where it was, it would have been simply a   
matter of time before Ranma came and destroyed that one too. And with   
nothing to defend it with, save imps, he would've been shit out of luck   
either way. Besides, with his Primary in a mana-heavy land like Cherry   
Blossom, he would've been able to bring the full power of his Dungeon   
Heart to bear, whereas a Temporary would have only allowed up to   
200,000 mana.  
In the end, though, it was his pride as a Keeper. If Ranma had   
beaten him when he had a strong advantage, there was no way he could   
ever recover enough face to lead even a band of goblins. Skeletons and   
vampires might have refused to join him (and most of those are   
created!).  
  
12) What fights are exactly as the game portrays them?  
A) Since every game of Dungeon Keeper can be different, depending   
on what you do and how you do it (I once had a large workshop to entice   
in a lot of trolls, but I only got 1 troll and 14 goblins), not many   
could be portrayed in the same manner that they were introduced.  
However, the starting fights go pretty much one way. There's   
little in the way of divergence in how you can handle those fights,   
save for maybe using This Is My Church, Feel The Power, Ha Ha Thisaway   
Ha Ha Thataway or Show Me the Money cheats.  
  
13) So, what's planned for DK Ukyou?  
A) DK Ranma got a lot of the face-paced hard-hitting action and   
"GET HOME NOW!" energy out of the way, so DK Ukyou can take it's sweet   
time exploring the DK universe.  
  
14) The final battle... what was up with all those weird   
creatures popping up?  
A) As a last ditch effort to increase the number of creatures   
fighting for him, King Reginald turned to a lot of the lost   
subterrainean creatures, such as the Demon Spawn, Dragon (both   
descendents of the Salamander), Giant Beetle, Giant Fly (predessor to   
the Firefly), and Tentacle. These creatures hadn't been seen since   
Keeper Devan's time (during the DK 1 events).  
  
15) Wait, the Demon Spawn and Dragon are DESCENDENTS of the   
Salamander?  
A) Yes. The Salamander lived much closer to lava and are   
prehistoric. When Demon Spawn and Dragons became harder and harder to   
attract, keepers found that the Salamander, a race that had revived   
itself from the brink of extinction, could be a very suitable   
replacement.  
  
16) So, what happened to Ghosts and stuff?  
A) The way I see it, the Ghosts didn't actually stop existing,   
they just preferred to leave for the afterworld. Besides, they were   
limited in their usefulness anyway. A lot of creatures that vanished   
from the standard list of Keeper creatures were due to their limited   
usefulness or chronically low HP.  
As for the hero creatures, they mostly fused. Samurais joined   
the ranks of Knights, Barbarians and giants became indistinguishable,   
witches and wizards were classified together, and the guard became   
useful with their long distance lance attacks.  
  
17) Why did you make the Royal Guard into Dragoons?  
A) First, the Dragoons of FF series are notorious for using   
lances.  
Second, the Jump ability of the Royal Guard, while powerful,   
isn't useful unless above ground or in a large cavern, which is how I   
can explain why it was a surprise to various creatures. After all, do   
YOU frequently expect a man in heavy iron armor to leap up into the   
air, ricochet of a stalagtite and stab you with a lance?  
Third, it distinguished them more from normal guards and explain   
their higher attack ratings.  
  
18) Okay, but why did you make the Elite Royal Guard into a   
different KIND of Dragoon? And wasn't Kongol supposed to be in there?  
A) I needed to distinguish the Elite Royal Guard further from   
even the Royal Guard. If they had to be have Dragon Souls, that would   
certainly distinguish them, wouldn't it?  
As for Kongol, he hadn't been designated as Gold Dragoon yet   
because the giants who were going to decide were in Snapdragon (Lord   
Sigmund's realm) when it was conquered. Since they had the Gold   
Dragoon soul hidden in a location known only to them (similiar to the   
location as the Portal Gem in Butterscotch, but even better hidden than   
the Portal Gem, which says something of it's importance to the giants),   
no one else was going to have it until the campaign was over. (for   
those wondering who Kongol is, just think of a giant with a mohawk who   
joins the Legend of Dragoon player's side or just look at a picture of   
a Barbarian from DK 1 and you get the idea)  
  
19) Dragon Souls? What's up with that? How can you GET a Soul?  
A) In truth, I think of the Dragon Soul as a piece of a Dragon   
Heart that can be forged into an amulet. For story purposes, they're   
more like powerful talismans that are granted by dragons to those who   
do not slay creatures for glory. Others were created by Dragons as a   
means of amplifying their own power from their fallen enemies, but when   
they were slain, the slayer found the amulet's mysterious powers.  
  
20) Okay, so who designates who gets which?  
A) The King appoints Purple Dragoon.  
Purple Dragoon appoints Red Dragoon.  
The Monks of St. Cuthbert appoint White Dragoon.  
Black Dragoon is new, but will likely have a self-appointed heir.  
Blue Dragoon is appointed by the Dwarves.  
Green Dragoon is appointed by the Elves.  
Gold Dragoon is appointed by the Giants.  
  
21) So, once you're appointed, that's it? What if you're evil?  
A) The appointment isn't simply a "Hmm, you look good. You're   
it" sort of thing. After all, the Giants didn't choose anyone to   
inherit the Gold Dragoon, even though the council that decided was   
converted to Ranma's side. The person has to go through a lot of   
trials in order to be chosen, trials that show whether or not the   
person is good enough. Each group has different requirements to be   
met, but no one truly evil has ever gotten the Dragon Souls, even   
though the people often chosen are humans or elves. After all, Meru   
had to impress the dwarves, Albert the elves, Shana the monks of St.   
Cuthbert, etc.  
  
22) So, why didn't you ressurrect the DK 1 creatures until the   
final battle?  
A) I felt it would chaotic enough without adding the unusual   
creatures of DK 1. Once the conflict was over, however, all of the   
once-thought-extinct creatures are free to roam the realm and eat   
freely from Ranma's hatcheries, so long as they don't attack any   
civilians.  
Besides, I'd have to explan what Demon Spawn are and how they can   
become dragons.  
  
23) So the dragons that those amulets are made from...  
A) Pure-bred dragons. They aren't Demon Spawn who evolved into   
Dragons.  
  
23) How do the portals work?  
A) They work on five possible principles.  
A1) The Dungeon Keeper creates a room, thus signaling the magic-  
sensitive creatures of the realm that there is someone hiring.  
A2) The creatures who desire to be employed concentrate hard on   
that desire. If there's a keeper in the area whose portals have not   
been over-exerted, the creature are drawn in through the portal.  
A3) Any neutral creatures who are above ground and seeking   
exployment are automatically summoned based on what rooms are bigger   
and more recently made.  
A4) A Keeper puts out a flyer with a proposed pay scale,   
announcing hirings in various locations, then attunes his portal to   
pulling in more creatures. The number of creatures pulled in depend on   
whether or not the keeper has the realm's portal gem or not and if the   
keeper has a living rival keeper.  
A5) Magic pixies flash their panties at the creatures,   
distracting them long enough for the Ewoks to tie their shoelaces   
together and push them into a pit. Wait, sorry, wrong series. Pixies   
don't exist in DK 2 ^_^  
  
24) Then, how do Mercenary Portals differ?  
A) Mercenary portal differ by summoning specifically humanoid   
creatures, as opposed to the normal portal, which is more broadly   
based.  
  
25) In DK Love Hina (Anime Dungeon Keeper for those who've   
visited my Fanfiction.net account), why in the nine hells did you make   
Brittany a Fairy and Shinobu an Elite Dark Knight?  
A) For fun, of course. It'd be boring if I just wrote them into   
roles that further subjugated them to a specific role. Besides, you   
have to admit, a werecheetah with lightning powers and a homemaker with   
a blood-caked sword makes for some wacky comedy.  
  
26) So, are there ANY creatures who'll be normal (such as trolls   
and bile demons) in DK Love Hina (Anime DK)?  
A) Yes, but they'll mostly be cannon fodder to die. After all,   
Anime Dungeon Keeper or DK Love Hina was made for the sole purpose of   
fitting anime-based characters into the DK series while keeping it   
mostly about the actual story.  
  
27) What's the proper way to become a knight?  
A) Many people don't seem to realize this, but you don't start out a squire and advance to knighthood. You instead start out as a page, (usually around the age of 8) and you are given various chores and such meant to tire out a youth's pep and vigor. Once you've completed four years of being a page, you advance to squire.  
Squirehood involves more intimately the aspects of being a knight. You are taught how to wield a sword, wear armor and so on. Squirehood lasts until your teacher, the knight, deems you ready to become a knight (and ready to go through whatever special trial is necessary to prove that to whomever can bestow knighthood (note: this is always hazy. Some knights can knight their own squires, while others must be knight by royalty. It depends on the code/order/chapter of the knight who is doing the training.)) or decides that you are simply not knight material.  
Some squires spend between two to eight years becoming a knight, depending on how quickly they grasp and prepare and how confident their guiding knight is about them becoming knights. A bad knight might have failed squires constantly because he/she isn't training them properly.  
So, yes, most of those movies about someone going into the past and instantly becoming a squire are Bull Shit.  
  
28) What's the proper way to become a dark/black knight?  
A) It is very similar to method of becoming an actual knight. However, with Dark Knights, squirehood is usually a lot more brutal as the squire must be ready for heavy combat. Also, depending on the guiding knight and whatever order/chapter they follow. Elites are much more cautious with their squires, as they must guide their squires onto a much stronger path than those of the common dark knights.  
There will always be trials with Dark Knights, though the price of failure can cost the squire their lives.  
The Elite Dark Knights of my DK worlds are capable of standing against even the Royal Guard. The best among them can even stand against the Elite Royal Guard. In DK Ranma, there aren't any 'best' elite dark knights. In DK Ukyou and Anime DK, there are.  
  
29) Order? Chapter?  
A) Fancy ways of saying guilds or clubs. A chapter is a smaller group of an order.  
  
30) If there _were_ still creature types from DK 1 in the time of DK 2 for your stories, why did only King Reginald have them?  
A) Most of the creatures who vanished had actually grown dangerously close to extinction as time went by. They'd retreated deep within the mountain upon which King Reginald's castle stood.  
King Reginald and his men came upon them on occassion when patrolling the inner sanctum and instead of slaughtering them, King Reginald saw that their numbers were dangerously low and they had no strength to fight. So, in compassion, he set about converting them and raising them in secret.  
In truth, King Reginald had no intention of sending them out to face the enemy armies. The creatures had been well treated in King Reginald's care and had flourished in secret. They sought to repay him for not killing them off by fighting his foes. This was the reason they appeared so suddenly after all of the King's men had been deployed or defeated.  
  
31) Just how DID Ranma get home only two weeks after he left?  
A) What no one realizes is that the crossing of dimensions allows for time travel. So long as you don't exist in that other dimension at the time you jump in, it's all right.  
A full year DID go by in the DK universe, but when he jumped back, he could have chosen any time after he'd left.  
Ranma should feel lucky. Happousai's banishment spell could have hurled him into the past of the DK universe instead, where he would have lived a much more violent life and would not have had the portal gems to use to go home. Hell, he might not have been able to use a Dungeon Heart.  
This form of time travel is how I believe the Sailor Moon universe's time travel really works. After all, you can't go back into a past you exist in, nor can you paradoxially go into a future that is yet to be for you, because you would cause a time rift/paradox. The universe doesn't like paradoxes, so it solves them by altering what happens, which is that an inperceivable nudge on the dimensional line shoves you into a different dimension's past/future that is very close to yours. It's usually imperceiveably different if you're lucky/accurate.  
This means that learning things about that future/past is of no use because it's different. This is why Sailor Pluto and other time travelers don't like to mess with 'history', because telling someone that they're going to defeat a monster, create a rift, etc. might cause that universe to go to a different track, which would render any possible counter-planning useless.  
After all, there's a saying: "It takes but one pebble to begin to change the course of a river."  
Also, there's another saying: "He who gets swelled head have really shitty balance when unexpected wind come."  
Okay, you caught me.  
I made the first one up.  
  
32) Back to the Dungeon Heart thing: If the Dungeon Hearts tell   
the Keepers everything they need to know, what's Lundar for?  
A) Mentors have two purposes. The first is to teach the Dungeon   
Keeper more about how to best devise a dungeon, strategies on how to   
build up troops, etc. The second is to act as a watch for times when   
the Keeper is asleep. They're sort of like Trusted Lieutenants, but   
not COMPLETELY Trusted Lieutenants. (nod to Peter's Evil Overlord List)  
In exchange for this, they are granted a form of immortality.   
They live as long as the Dungeon Keeper wills them to. Without a   
Keeper, their infinite lifespan slowly becomes more and more limited   
and they actually begin to age again. It would take an average   
teenager-turned-Mentor roughly a thousand years to die when the Heart   
goes into 'standby', provided that the Dungeon Heart isn't reactivated   
again.  
  
33) How can there be so many Dungeon Hearts? I mean, it's not like someone went around making a billion of the damn things, but it seems like there are a lot of twits getting their hands on them.  
A) Just like there's a way to create a temporary Dungeon Heart, there's a way of taking that Dungeon Heart. Most times, it usually occurs with a temporary Dungeon Heart.  
Common: If a temporary Dungeon Heart is left alone for twelve cycles of the moon (a year), it will become inactive, like the primary Dungeon Hearts. This most often occurs when a Keeper is either A) Thinking years in advance, B) Creating a Temporary Dungeon Heart as a beginning of a campaign but they get distracted and forget about it, or C) The Keeper creates a number of temporary Dungeon Hearts before he/she dies/is killed.  
Uncommon: The Keeper creates a Temporary Dungeon Heart and allows someone else to to take control of it. This allows the primary keeper to have a slight leg up when it comes to utilizing energy as they can still tap the new Keeper's Dungeon Heart and prevents the other keeper from betraying them until the original keeper is dead and their Dungeon Heart becomes inactive.  
  
34) What about the portals?  
A) What about the portals?  
  
35) If you capture more than one, what good does it do?  
A) In the original DK game? Nothing. In the DK 2 game, it gives you extra five active creatures per portal after your first. Note that if you lose a portal, then gain it back, it does not add another five creatures. It instead raises the maximum number of creatures you can have, should the ones you're currently commanding die.  
Example: You can have 15 creatures come through one portal, which a maximum amount of 25. You capture another portal. You can now have 20 creatures in your dungeon with a maximum of 35. You then lose that portal and six creatures. You will only get 1 to replace those casaulties until you regrab that portal. Meanwhile, your opponent gets an additional five creatures via that portal (unless your recapture is swift enough to prevent that).  
Example 2: Nakago captures six portals to begin with, meaning his active maximum is 40. His reserve is 75, meaning that for each creatures his opponent kills, he'll get another one until they've killed more than 35 creatures. His portals, then exhuasted, will not allow him to gain any more creatures. He must capture more portals before he can resupply to his maximum. 


End file.
